Feasibility studies for the measurement of time-like, electromagnetic form factors of the proton at PANDA-FAIR

One of the main goals of the future PANDA experiment at FAIR (Darmstadt, Germany) is the investigation of the proton structure. Electromagnetic form factors (FF's) are fundamental quantities which parameterize the electric and magnetic structure of hadrons. In the time-like region, proton FF's can be accessed experimentally in anti pp → l⁺l^- (l = e,μ) annihilation processes, assuming that the interaction takes place through the exchange of one virtual photon. The expected statistical precision for the measurement of time-like electromagnetic proton form factors with PANDA was investigated in the framework of the PANDARoot software for detector simulation and event reconstruction for both muon and electron channels. These studies investigated the possibility to achieve an optimal signal-background separation and sufficient background suppression of the relevant background channels. Different methods have been used to generate and analyse the processes of interest. The results show, that time-like electromagnetic proton form factors can be measured at PANDA with high statistical accuracy over a large kinematical region.